Levels of Analysis II

FOREGROUNDING
 FOREGROUNDING
• A productive way of carrying out a stylistic analysis
is to focus on the foregrounded elements in a
text. Many a times, foregrounded elements
have meaningful implications for the
interpretation of the text.
• Essentially, foregrounding is a technique for
„making strange‟ in language. It involves the
exploitation and manipulation of the language
in ways different from the normal use of
language. Foregrounding thus refreshes
language from the way normal language use
has automatised it. This explains why
foregrounding is viewed as defamiliarisation.
 Introduction
• Foregrounding has to do with salience and
prominence in language use.
• Leech (2008, p. 30) believes that
foregrounding, as motivated deviation from
linguistic, or other socially accepted norms, is
a basic principle of aesthetic communication.
• In tandem with Leech, Simpson (2004, p. 50)
sees foregrounding as a form of textual
patterning which is motivated specifically for
literary-aesthetic purposes and which is
capable of working at any level of language.
 Introduction
• Foregrounding is stylistic distortion achieved
either through deviation from the norm or
through the use of more of the same elements.
Foregrounding as deviation from the norm is a
product of abnormal/unexpected irregularity,
whilst foregrounding as more of the same is a
product of abnormal/unexpected regularity
such as repetition and parallelism.
• For Wales (2011, p. 167), foregrounding
accomplished through repetition or parallelism
is a form of deviation in that it violates the
normal rules of usage through over-frequency.
 Introduction
• Being a motivated use of language,
foregrounding has a „value in the game‟ (Leech &
Short, 2007, p. 40) in that it projects the
intended and overall meaning of the text in an
unusual or unique way.
• Also, foregrounding can manifest at all levels of
language – graphological, phonological,
morphological, syntactic, semantic, discourse,
and pragmatic.
 Recognising foregrounding
• In spite of the fact that foregrounding is taken as
salience or prominence in the text, Wales (2011, p. 167)
submits that the recognition of what is or is not
foregrounded may be difficult to establish in some
contexts.
• In the same way, Leech (1985, p. 47) notes that “There
is no requirement that foregrounding should be
consciously noted by the reader.”
• Wales (ibid) indicates that the subjective judgement of
an analyst in such contexts is inevitable. However,
such subjectivity of response must be grounded in the
reader‟s conscious attention.
• Therefore since foregrounding is reliant on conscious
attention, it increases interpretative salience and
emotional effect.
 Recognising foregrounding
• In the same way, Leech (ibid) submits that
foregrounding invites an act of IMAGINATIVE
INTERPRETATION in addition to the normal
processes of interpretation of the text.
• He thus reiterates that a reader will need to pay
attention to the text to discover any form of
abnormality or irregularity in order to work out the
text and make sense of it. To do this, the reader
must consciously or unconsciously use their
imaginations to investigate the essence of the
abnormality.
• Leech concludes by saying that it is in these imaginative
acts of attributing meaning, or 'making sense', that the
special communicative values of a text lies.
 Recognising foregrounding
• Leech (1985, pp. 47-8) further submits that the COMMUNICATIVE
VALUES of foregrounding are not random. There can be four major
categories or effects of the foregrounded elements of a text :
▫ CONTRAST: such as those found in paradox, antithesis, and antonyms
▫ SIMILARITY: e.g. in metaphor, simile and synonyms
▫ PARALLELISM
▫ MIMESIS: imitation or enactment of the meaning of a text through its form as can
be indicated in onomatopoeia and sound symbolism.

• Leech (1985, p. 48) concludes thus:

▫ These interpretative values are not present in the text itself, but it is part
of a reader's 'poetic competence' to look for such values. They are the
basis for LOCAL acts of interpretation, and local interpretations in their
turn contribute to the interpretation of the whole poem [text].
 Types of foregrounding:
Deviation
• As noted above, foregrounding can manifest as
either DEVIATION (paradigmatic foregrounding) or
REPETITION (syntagmatic foregrounding).
• Deviation
• This is the outright violation of linguistic norms at
any level of language. It is the stand of many
scholars that figures, that is, stylistic figures, are
products of deviations. Often, unusual metaphors,
similes or collocations make language strange and
unfamiliar and thus force fresh realisations upon
the reader/hearer.
• Irregularities in the way words are pronounced, for
example, demonstrate phonological foregrounding.
 Types of foregrounding:
Deviation
• From Gabriel Okara‟s poem titled “You Laughed and
Laughed and Laughed”, for example, is the line:
„My laughter is the fire of the eye of the sky‟.
• Deviation can occur in language through the deliberate
disruption of the usual order of words in a sentence. An
example is Green‟s speech in King Richard:

Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristol Castle

• The line does not only disrupt the usual order of words,
but also leaves the lexical verb of the sentence out. The
normal structure of the line could have read thus:
Well, I will (go) straight to Bristol Castle for refuge
 Types of foregrounding:
Deviation
• At the graphological level of the written language, there can be
deviation in relation to punctuation, manipulation of the typeface
(irregular/unusual appearance of the font size and type, etc.), space
management, colour, appearance of the text, etc.

• Graphological deviation may occur in a text such that

meaning becomes ambiguous or complex to process.
Consider the following examples:
i. Let us eat daddy

ii. In the morning.

I love.
Impossible.
Showers.
In Nigeria.
 Types of foregrounding:
Deviation
• Whilst the absence of punctuation marks, especially a comma, in
example (i) leads to an unlikely meaning, the over-usage of the full-
stop in example (ii) leads to the complexity of meaning and an
arduous process of meaning processing.
 Types of foregrounding:
Deviation
• Gregoriou (2014, pp. 91-2) gives the example of a
grahologically deviant filmic tagline in the Buffalo
Soldiers (2001) – „War is hell ... but peace is f*#!%!!
boring‟ – which is not just graphologically deviant
because of its unconventional spelling, but is also lexico-
semantically deviant in its inclusion of a taboo word.
• Gregoriou (2014, p. 92) explains that the graphologically
deviant word, being ill-fitting for the context, generates
lexical deviation, while the sentence is built on
grammatical parallelism because of the repetition of the
subject-verb-complement grammatical structure in each
of the two clauses coordinated by „but‟.
 Types of foregrounding:
Deviation (external & internal)
• Deviation can always take the form of either external
deviation or internal deviation.
• External deviation occurs when a language user
violates the norm that s/he shares with other
language users.
• Internal deviation occurs when a writer or language
user violates the norm s/he has established in
her/his text. In essence, internal deviation describes
that situation where a language user deviates from
the norms of a deviated norm.
 Types of foregrounding:
Repetition
• Repetition: This is the violation of language rules
in terms of over-frequency or over-usage.
• With repetition, foregrounding resides in the
unexpectedness of the sameness of language
elements in the text. The repeated items of a text
are foregrounded and thus attract the attention of
the reader. Repetitive patterns can be found at all
levels of language. For example, repetitive patterns
in phonology can lead to alliteration whilst
repetition in syntax may lead to parallelism.
Whether as phonological, lexical or syntactic
repetition, over-frequency makes the text
memorable and appealing.
 Types of foregrounding:
Repetition
• Repetition at the phonological level can relate to
repetitive patterns such as alliteration, assonance,
consonance, end-rhyme, etc.
• The following lines from rome aboh‟s „hour of truth
of truth‟, for example, manifest the repetition of the
phonemes /f/ /l/ /t/:
…about rambunctious moths flutterin‟
to the lustre of your laughter..

• The repetitive sounds generate sound symbolism

or onomatopoeia which reveal how the moths move
up and down to the laughter. It equally portrays
the lustre of the laughter being described.
 Types of foregrounding:
Repetition (parallelism)
• Parallelism occurs when there is similarity or
corresponding structures in a text. The
corresponding structures can be phrases,
clauses or even sentences. One cannot deny or
underestimate the alluring and memorable
effects of parallelism in Martin Luther‟s “I have
a dream” and Obama‟s “Yes, we can” speeches.
• Interestingly, many English proverbs and
maxims are built on parallelism in several
ways.
 Types of foregrounding:
Repetition (parallelism)
• Examine the following:
• What you see is what you get
▫ (repeated structure/relatedness of meaning
between see and get)
• When the going gets tough, the tough get
going
▫ (inversed repetition)
• Nothing ventured, nothing gained
▫ (repeated words and structure and the
relatedness of meaning between ventured and
gained)
 Types of foregrounding:
Repetition (parallelism)
• Easy come, easy go
▫ (repeated structure of the two clauses as well as
the antonymous relationship between come and
go which leads to antithesis – repetition
ingrained in oppositeness or contrasting
meanings)
• Little drops of water make a mighty ocean
▫ (parallelism through contrasting meaning)
 Types of foregrounding:
style figures
• It is mostly believed that style figures are typically foregrounded
elements in a literary text.
• Style figures are believed to be of two categories:
▫ Schemes (from the Greek for „to form/shape‟)
▫ Tropes (from the Greek for „to turn‟)
• Schemes, otherwise called figures of thought, are foregrounded by
their patterns of regularity (Wales, 2011, p. 162). The repetitive
patterns could occur phonetically or syntactically such as
alliteration, chiasmus, anaphora, anadiplosis, epistrophe, etc.
• Burke (2014, p. 25) submits that schemes are broadly concerned
with deviations in syntactic structure, involving a transfer of order.
He adds that schemes can be categorised in different ways, such as
schemes of „balance‟, „inverted word order‟, „omission‟, „repetition‟
and so on.
• For Shen (2006, p. 459) schemes are abnormal arrangements that
allow ideas to be presented forcefully.
 Types of foregrounding:
style figures
• Tropes, otherwise called figures of speech, often
constitute deviation in semantics, entailing a transfer of
meaning (Burke, 2014, p. 25).
• Wales (2011, p. 162) will thus submit that tropes, in
relation to their etymology, involve the twist of words
away from their usual meanings or collocations to
produce semantic or lexical deviation.
• For Shen (2006, p. 459), tropes are devices that alter the
conventional meaning of the expression. She further
describes tropes as a word or group of words used in
some deviation from the strict literal sense of the
word(s), or from the more commonly used form of word
order or sentence construction.
 Types of foregrounding:
style figures
• Thus, similes, metaphors, oxymora, hyperboles,
metonymy, synedoche, irony, and puns or word-
plays are examples of tropes.
• Leech (1969) (cited in Wales 2011, p. 162) thus
succinctly defines tropes as „foregrounded
irregularities of content‟; whereas schemes are
„foregrounded regularities of expression.‟
 Coherence of foregrounding
• Since Mukarovsky argues that foregrounding
must be consistent and systematic and not
just the isolation of prominent features, Leech
(2008, p. 64) submits that foregrounded
elements in a text must exhibit coherence.
• That is, foregrounded elements must form a
pattern in themselves. Thus, foregrounded
features at the different levels of language
must tie together and in cooperation yield the
meaning of the text through the systematic and
consistent pattern which they form.
 Coherence of foregrounding
• Leech (2008, p. 64) thus submits that the
coherence of foregrounding may be considered in
relation to
• Cohesion of foregrounding – otherwise called
horizontal coherence (Leech, 1985, p. 50), it means
that „the foregrounded features identified in
isolation are related to one another, and to the text
in its entirety‟ (Leech, 2008, p. 31)
• Congruence of foregrounding – otherwise called
vertical coherence (Leech, 1985, p. 50), it means
that the foregrounded features must maintain a
sort of similarity and must occur concurrently
across different levels of language for the
meaningful interpretation of the text.
 Coherence of foregrounding
• In essence, it is not enough identifying the
foregrounded elements of a text. An analyst
will be required to investigate how the isolated
prominent features at one level of language
look like the other features in the other levels
of language; how all the salient features form
and a pattern; and how the motivated pattern
reveals the meaning of the text.
• In essence, foregrounded elements of a text
must work in cooperation and not in isolation.
 Foregrounding checklist
• To check for foregrounding in a text, you may need to
pay attention to:
• Phonological level
• Use your knowledge of the phonological system to
identify sound patterns such as alliteration,
consonance, assonance, end-rhyme, reverse-rhyme,
half-rhyme, etc. as well as phonological salience
accomplished through facilities of language like
onomatopoeia and sound symbolism. Equally, you may
be on the lookout for phonological deviations. Such
phonological deviations may be aesthetically motivated
to express speech style, particular accent, or age,
education or social status of a participant/character in
a text.
 Foregrounding checklist
• Graphological level
• Investigate whether there are special effects in the graphology
or “writtenness” of the text which are used to motivate special
meanings. For example, you may need to find out any
unusualness in punctuation, typeface, font size, font type,
space management, and colour. This may lead to probing
questions: is there the use of punctuation marks such as
capitalisation, comma, and full-stop or not? Is there a reversal
of the writing system of the language, say from right to left or
from bottom to top? Is there a reversal of the page colour such
that white is written against a black background for example?
How is space managed and to what end or effect? Does space
manipulation lead to visual perception or creativity? Or, does
it suggest a different genre different from that which the text
actually belongs?
 Foregrounding checklist
• Morphological level
• Where there seems to be foregrounding on the level
of lexis, you can use morphological analysis to look
at new combinations of words (Thornborrow &
Wareing‟s 1998, p. 66).
• Note that new combinations may lead to
compounding or collocations and figurative uses of
language which will have significant effects at the
lexico-semantic level of language.
• You may need to investigate any unusualness in
the employment of inflectional and derivational
morphemes and experimentations with the
permissible combination of sounds into syllables
what ends they serve for the meaning of the text.
 Foregrounding checklist
• Syntactic level
• Thornborrow & Wareing‟s (1998, p. 66) suggest that:
▫ Where there is foregrounding on the level of word order and
syntax, you can use your knowledge of word classes (i.e. nouns,
verbs, adjectives etc.) to analyse unusual or „marked‟
combinations.
▫ Again on the grammatical level, you can look for combinations
and patterns in the use of different types of phrases which may
contribute to a more literary usage of language, as well as
analysing the structure of sentences.
▫ In all cases, you should find that being aware of the systems of the
language, the rules which govern the combination of a range of
grammatical elements, will make it possible for you to identify the
more „deviant‟, „marked‟ or literary structures, from more
„everyday‟, non-literary usage of language, and thus be able to say
more about the structural patterning in a text.
 Foregrounding checklist
• For, Jeffries and McIntyre (2010, pp. 50-58) examining
foregrounding at the syntactic level may require to be on the
look out for minor and timeless sentences, ambiguity,
vagueness, and ungrammaticality.
• You may also need to pay attention to incomplete sentences
and the purposes which they serve as well as the use of tenses.
• The presence or absence of pre-/post-modification can also
lead to salient interpretation of the text.
• Equally, the absence of explicit conjunctions or connectives
(asyndeton/asyndetic coordination also known as
brachylogia), e.g. „sun, moon, stars in their courses above‟ or
the over-frequency of conjunctions or connectives, e.g. „You
laughed and laughed and laughed‟ have meaningful
implications in texts.
 Foregrounding checklist
• Lexico-semantic level
• Investigating foregrounding at the lexico-semantic level will entail
asking questions about the outlook of the vocabulary of the text and
how meaning is generated the text. This can be in relation to:
▫ Semantic Field – matching or ill-matching of fields
▫ Lexical relations – synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, polysemy,
homonymy, homophony, etc.
▫ Types of Meanings (Denotative, Connotative, Affective, etc.)
▫ Neologism
▫ Loanwords
▫ Unusual conversion (making a word function in a different class)
▫ Collocational and selectional restrictions on co-occurrence and
connotation
▫ Idiomatic Expressions
▫ Registers
 Foregrounding checklist
• Pragmatics
▫ Situational meanings in relation to the context.
discourse (features of external context;
• communicative situation).
• Discourse
▫ Cohesion – how do the somewhat disjointed parts of
the text work together to form a unified whole?
▫ Coherence – how do the somewhat disjointed parts of
the text meaningfully mean?
• Overall, you will need to investigate the coherence of
the isolated foregrounded elements in terms of
cohesion and congruence.